Consumers with strong credit, cash for healthy down payments and a good feeling about the economy are finding fewer barriers to homebuying. And prices edged up only 0.7 percent last year in the Houston area.

The fiery housing market of a few years ago may be long gone, but home sales and prices were hotter last year than in 2010.

While some consumers remain shut out of the property market, others with strong credit, cash for healthy down payments and a good feeling about the economy are buying.

Realtors sold 53,606 single-family homes in 2011 - a 4 percent increase over the previous year, according to data from the Houston Association of Realtors. The improvement represents the first annual uptick in sales after four years of declines.

Prices, which rarely swing widely in Houston, inched up 0.7 percent last year to $155,000, said the association, which tracks properties sold through the Multiple Listing Service.

At the end of the year, there were 42,083 houses for sale, a 14.1 percent drop from the previous year.

And the amount of time it would take to sell all the single-family homes on the market, based on recent activity, fell to 5.8 months. That's the lowest it's been since December 2009 and below the national average of seven months.

Still, housing activity is way down from the 2006 peak when more than 72,000 homes sold.

Even as Houston's economy outperforms other places, its residents remain affected by tighter lending standards.

And low-interest mortgages haven't led to a spike in demand, Crawford said.

Some would-be buyers are holding off because they don't want to go into debt, or they're waiting to make sure prices have bottomed out.

As a result, the rental market has been strong.

Single-family rentals rose 12.3 percent last year compared with 2010, according to the association.

It's hard to generalize about the local market because it varies so much by neighborhood.

Parts of the area still bogged down with foreclosures and short sales remain soft, while homes for sale in other parts of town are seeing multiple offers.

"Inside the Loop near downtown was the last to get hit and the first to come back. Farther out you go, the longer it takes to come back," said broker Blake Hillegeist - though he noted that some suburbs and master-planned communities are strong.

For example, a house he listed in Briar Hills, a neighborhood near Texas 6 and the Katy Freeway, received five offers in four days, Hillegeist said.

For the past seven months, area home sales have been on the rise, according to the Realtors' association.

December sales were up 7.2 percent over December 2010. The single-family home median price - the figure at which half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less - rose 1.9 percent to $160,000.

The increase in sales activity, however, was driven in part by what was happening the year before.

During the second half of 2010, sales activity dropped after a government housing incentive expired.

"We spent a good part of the year struggling to accurately gauge the market because we were comparing to accelerated sales in 2010 that resulted from the homebuyer tax credit," Wayne Stroman, the association's new chairman, said in a statement. "Once we distanced ourselves from that period, we saw clear indications of a healthy market."